For the fifth year in a row, Academy of the Canyons’ math club has done what may seem impossible: gathered dozens of middle and high school students, on a Saturday morning, to do math.
About 30 William S. Hart Union High School District students, ranging from sixth to 12th grade, participated in the AOC-led Spring Math Meet math competition at the College of the Canyons University Center next door.
The competition was a fully student-led initiative, said club advisor Mike Koegle.
Not only did students reach out to Hart district schools to find competitors — some competitors knew club members as their tutors, which helped, said club President Anita Patel — they also write and grade the entire test. The club’s six officers were proctoring the test that morning.
“To say that I had anything to do with this would be misinforming the population … this is a completely student-led, incredible collaborative math activity,” Koegle said. “If you’ve ever heard the old quote that if you find yourself as the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room — anytime I see those six students, I know I’m in the right place.”
And before the competition itself, students were able to book a virtual guest speaker, mathematician Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo. Patel said inviting Rubinstein-Salzedo was a way to give the competition a research takeaway for students.
“He is very respected in the math competition community as well as the research. He has done his PhD at Stanford, and he shed light into many open problems in tiles and graph theory,” Patel said. “So not only does this competition serve as a way (to sample) competitive problem solving, but even into research, too.”
Patel said that that’s part of the utility of participating in the Spring Math Meet: Math is much more than a strictly defined skillset, and a competition can be much more than a resume boost.
“Problem solving isn’t just about winning competitions and then putting that onto your resume. It’s more of developing a mindset. No matter what field you want to go into, critical thinking always helps,” Patel said. “And at the end of the day, many people do not think of math (this way), but it is an art form.”
Koegle said that AOC’s math club members became more interested in putting their own skills to the test about seven years ago, when students in the club started inquiring about entering math competitions, such as the prestigious American Mathematics Competitions — where club members scored high enough to compete nationally.
Since then, he said he’s seen the club’s six officers give something back to their younger peers in the Hart district that demonstrates remarkable generosity.
“They want to kind of leave their mark, but they want to pass the torch. That’s what’s so amazing about this,” Koegle said. “As you witnessed in there, you saw them empowering the kids. … There’s no arrogance. There’s no ‘look at what we’ve created.’ It is this community that they’ve built, and I literally could not be more proud of that.”
